Marion Borgelt is a leading Australian artist whose stellar career has spanned over 40 years. Her work draws inspiration from universal themes such as life cycles, cosmology, optics and phenomenology to create highly crafted, visually spectacular works. Through a journey between two and three-dimensional works she explores connections between man-made culture and nature, between the constructed and the organic world, between microcosm and macrocosm and the ever-present duality of light and dark.
A lexicon of symbols and motifs, at once universal and personal, distinguishes the imagery of Borgelt’s work. Drawing on experience with a wide range of materials, including bees-wax, canvas, felt, glass, pigment, stainless steel, wood, stone and organic matter, she hones her ideas to the demands of a given site, mediating the creative intervention with originality and sensitivity.
Marion Borgelt has received many significant art awards including The Harry P Gill Memorial Medal, 1977, as most outstanding final year student SA School of Art; a Peter Brown Memorial Travelling Art Scholarship for study in New York (1979–80) and a fellowship from the French Government for living and working in Paris in 1989, where she consequently spent eight years. Additionally, in 1996, Borgelt was the first Australian artist awarded the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Art Fellowship. She was also awarded a Visual Arts and Crafts Australia Fellowship. Most recently Marion was awarded the Muswellbrook 2020 Art Award.
Public and Corporate commissioned works include: Ad Astra (2022) St Catherine's School, Sydney; Musical Spheres (2020) for AMP Capital, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney; Morpheus Hotel (2019) for Melco Crown Resorts, Macau; Cascadence (2018) for Baker McKenzie, Tower 1, Levels 44 -46 Barangaroo; Liquid Light: Horizontal Triptychs 3 & 4 (2013) for 20 Bond Street, Sydney; Candescent Moon (2011) for 101 Collins Street, Melbourne; Round Up (2005) a site- specific, interactive maze for Shear Outback, Hay; Time and Tide (wait for no man) (2004) for J P Morgan Chase, Sydney; Pulse, for the Australian National University, Canberra; 55 Ring Maze (2000) at Arthur’s Seat, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria; Primordial Alphabet and Rhythm (1999) for News Limited, Sydney.
